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A large storm hit Israel on Wednesday, uprooting trees and tearing down power lines as well as causing schools in the north to close due to snow.

In Netanya a man was lightly wounded when winds shattered a glass shop door, and a construction worker was taken to the Laniado hospital with cuts in his head. Hundreds of houses from the coastal area are having power shortages, Yedioth Ahronoth reported.

In places all over the country, trees, hit by lightning or uprooted by strong winds, were blocking streets and damaging parked cars.

A fallen tree on Tel Aviv’s central King Geroge street hit a power line that collapsed, causing traffic jams in the area. Police shut down the area as electric company crews dealt with the loose cables. Eyewitnesses told Maariv the earth shook before the tree’s roots started to push up through large portions of the sidewalk.

Beersheba and the south of the country were hit by major sand-storms, and the Ministry of the Environment issued a warning about air pollution levels throughout the Negev, recommending that the elderly and sick refrain from physical activity.

In the northern part of the Golan Heights schools were closed at 1:30p.m. as snow started to fall, and local authorities asked people to refrain from unnecessary driving.

At the top of Mount Hermon, snow has passed the two meter mark for the first time in a decade, and the site’s management told Maariv that this will enable them to keep the slopes open for longer than expected.

Soft flurries of snow fell in Kibbutz Yiron, located in the northern Galilee on the border with Lebanon.